Posts Tagged ‘Halhul’

Cleared for publication: Hebron resident Hussam Qawasme was apparently paid NIS 220,000 – $61,500 – for the June 12 abduction and murder of three Israeli teens by Hamas terrorists in Gush Etzion.

Qawasme was arrested July 11 in connection with the attack, which he is credited with helping to mastermind. He reportedly received the funds for the job from his brother, a convicted Hamas official in Gaza.

According to information released Thursday by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) it was Qawasme who hid the bodies of 19 year old Eyal Yifrah, 16 year old Naftali Frenkel and 16 year old Gilad Sha’ar, kidnapped and murdered on June 12. He had purchased the field where the bodies were stashed in shallow graves along Highway 60 in the town of Halhul, halfway between Hebron and Gush Etzion.

“In an intelligence operation launched by the Shin Bet, Hussam Qawasme was tracked down and arrested in a hideout in the Shuafat refugee camp,” the Shin Bet stated.

Hussam Qawasme was given up by another arrested accomplice who had hidden him and was also recently indicted. Hussam himself was incarcerated in Israel from 1995 to 2002. He was convicted on charges of involvement in Hamas terrorist activities, including participating in a cell that carried out bombing attacks.

“He is the son of a family whose sons have been involved in severe terror attacks on behalf of Hamas,” the Shin Bet added.

The Hamas operative planned to flee to Jordan after stashing the bodies of the three teens but instead was caught and arrested, according the a statement released Thursday by the Shin Bet following Qawasme’s indictment in the IDF military court.

Hussam Qawasme is described in court papers as a ‘command level Hamas operative.’

His brother in Gaza – who allegedly bankrolled the operation – was freed by Israel as part of the prisoner exchange deal that secured the Oct. 18, 2011 return of former IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from five years of captivity by Hamas.

The money was transferred from Gaza to Qawasme in Hebron via cash-stuffed envelopes carried by Hussam’s mother and another, unnamed woman, the indictment alleged. Among the purchases were a vehicle with which to carry out the attack and four guns.

The two kidnapper-killers, relative Marwan Qawasme and Amer Abu Aisha are still at large.

But under interrogation, Hussam Qawasme, 40, named other Hebron family members who had planned to help him escape to Jordan with a fake ID after the attack. Hisham Qawasme, 35; Jamil Qawasme, 28; and Hamas member Hassan Qawasme, 45, are all in Israeli custody.

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama has sharply condemned the Israeli government’s decision Sunday to designate a lot in Gush Etzion as state land.

The decision came as a direct result of the kidnapping and murder by Hamas terrorists of three teenage yeshiva students on the site in early June.

The U.S. claimed the move would damage future final status talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

“We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity,” a Statement Department spokesman said. “This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue, is counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians. We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision.”

In general, the U.S. has opposed Israeli development in Judea and Samaria, although most past administrations have ameliorated their concerns, depending on circumstance.

The 4,000-dunam lot is located adjacent to the Gush Etzion community of Alon Shevut, not far from bus stop and hitchhiking post where Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Sha’ar were abducted by Hamas terrorists and then murdered on June 12. Their bodies were found three weeks later in Judea after a massive manhunt by thousands of IDF soldiers and security personnel, in a field owned by the Hebron-based Qawasme clan along Highway 60 between Hebron and Gush Etzion in the PA town of Halhul.

Prior to the designation, the Judea and Samaria civil administration had designated the status of the area — known as Geva’ot — as ‘survey land’ as ordered by the political establishment after the bodies of the three teens were recovered. The move froze the status of the area and prevented construction plans from moving through the system until a determination could be made about its future, according to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

Geva’ot is not new. In 1982, an Israeli cabinet decision laid the groundwork for development of the area as an IDF Nahal community, which started in 1984 and then closed two years later. For the next 10 years the site became the home of the Shevut Yisrael Yeshiva, with small pre-fab homes. In 1998, The Gush Etzion Regional Council reached out to the government, requesting construction of a full-scale city on the site similar to Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim, Modi’il Illite and Beitar Illit. Plans began but two years later were dropped due to international diplomatic pressure. In 2008, once again the plans were picked up and moved forward in 2009, especially after the Annapolis Summit came to naught. By 2012, initial authorization for 523 homes was secured from the Defense Ministry — and there the project was frozen.

Gush Etzion is well within the area Israel is likely to retain in any final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

The PA immediately responded that the site belongs to districts of two separate PA-controlled cities: Bethlehem and Hebron. Bethlehem is located across the road and is more than five and a half miles north. Hebron is the same distance, to the south.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, declared Sunday evening, “The settlement enterprise is illegal,” in a sweeping condemnation of every Jewish city, town and village built in Judea and Samaria, including any that might be built on the newly-designated state land. Nearly 400,000 Jews now live in Judea and Samaria.

He, too, said the move would “bring about a further deterioration” in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – which at this point includes Hamas in its unity government.

The PA has had to be repeatedly dragged to the negotiations table over the years, each time with ‘enticements’ and ‘good will gestures’ forced on Israel by the United States.

One of the three boys kidnapped by Arab terrorists on June 12 gave a good accounting of himself and put up a fight before he was murdered, a source said.

The source is involved in the forensic identification process of three bodies found in a field near Halhul Monday evening and said one of the boys fought back against his attackers.

The source told the Walla! news site that forensic evidence being gathered at the Abu Kabir Institute shows that one of the teens put up “meaningful resistance” against the kidnappers.

The boys were abducted by terrorists while hitchhiking home from their yeshiva for the Sabbath, at a routine hitching stop in Gush Etzion. An IDF source told the news site that after the Arab terrorists grabbed the boys near the Jewish community of Alon Shevut, the vehicle they were traveling in headed west and then made a U-turn to go south towards Hevron.

Within minutes, at about 10:25 p.m., one of the boys called the “100″ police hotline, whispering into the cell phone, “I’ve been kidnapped. We’ve been kidnapped!” He then went silent, perhaps fearing his captors would discover he was using the phone. Shortly after the call was made, shots were fired and the phone went dead, a little more than two minutes later.

It is likely the terrorists decided to cut their losses and run. They had no way of knowing that police had bumbled the call, leaving open a window of more than five hours before anyone in supervision or above would even take the call seriously, let alone bother to follow it up. (At least four senior police officers have been dismissed as a result of that decision.)

Instead, the kidnappers likely believed that police would soon be on their tail – and decided to end all doubts, murdering the boys and escaping with their own lives intact.

Within hours of starting their search, security forces found a burned-out vehicle, a rifle and bullet casings near the Palestinian Authority Arab village of Dura, slightly south of Hevron – a hotbed of Hamas terrorists, among others. It’s been searched repeatedly by IDF soldiers in the past 19 days.

But no kidnapped boys were found; no bodies and no perpetrators. The terrorists took just enough time to hurriedly transport and bury their victims’ bodies in a shallow cave that is barely visible in a farmer’s stony field, alongside the PA Arab village of Halhul — another classic ‘terrorist central’ stronghold.

Thanks to the determination and unending energy of tens of thousands of IDF soldiers, and the intensive efforts of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) agents, searchers were led in the direction of that field Monday afternoon.

Despite fierce resistance from surrounding villagers who clearly knew what was concealed there, at last the searchers reached their first objective in Operation Brother’s Keeper, and found the sad evidence they were looking for.

Let the memory of Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Sha’ar not fade, let their blood not have flowed in vain.

May their memories be for a blessing and may God avenge their blood.

May the soldiers of the IDF and the agents of the Shin Bet find success in the next phase of Operation Brother’s Keeper as they continue their hunt for the murders of our boys.

Government leaders are promising the nation that Operation Brother’s Keeper will not end until the killers of three innocent Israeli teens are tracked down and brought to justice.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon promised to track down the killers of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Frenkel, 16 and Gilad Sha’ar, 16 – and to punish Hamas for the crime.

“We view Hamas as being responsible for the murders,” Ya’alon told reporters Tuesday morning, “and we know how to settle accounts with them.” The defense minister made it clear that Operation Brother’s Keeper will continue until the boys’ killers were found.

“We will continue to hunt down the boys’ murderers and we will not rest nor remain silent until we get our hands on them,” he promised.

Ya’alon said in a message to the boys’ families that “the heavy sorrow which envelops you envelops the entire nation” but praised their strength during the two and a half week ordeal that preceded the discovery of their sons’ bodies. It was that, he said, that allowed the IDF, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Israel Police “the strength to continue to search to its bitter end.”

The defense minister likewise praised the security forces who didn’t rest until they found the boys, noting their “impressive demonstration of cooperation and sense of mission.”

Yesh Atid chairman and Finance Minister Yair Lapid also vowed Tuesday morning that Operation Brother’s Keeper will continue until the terrorists who murdered the teens are caught — and he was similarly supportive of the families and the security forces.

Lapid said openly that it broke his heart when he heard the teens’ bodies were found Monday evening.

“I want to send a warm embrace to their families and promise them that we will continue to hunt down those responsible for this crime,” he said.

“Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay a heavy price,” he vowed – like Ya’alon, echoing the statement made Monday night by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at an emergency meeting of the security cabinet.

“We will continue to act with determination until we find these murderers. This is our responsibility, to act against anyone who tries to harm the safety of our children.”

Early Tuesday, IDF soldiers raided the homes of the two Hamas terrorists identified as the prime suspects in the kidnapping and murders of the boys – Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha – both of whom remain at large and are ‘veterans’ of the Israeli prison system.

Both also have a history of praying together at the same mosque, and since they are residents of Hevron in the Beit Khalil region it has now been sealed off for an intensified search effort around the area.

Palestinian Authority Arabs attacked the IDF humvee ambulance that carried the bodies of the three Israeli teens out of the PA Arab village of Halhul, north of Hevron.

The Arabs hurled rocks and paint at the ambulance, smashing its windshield and blinding the windows – as road terrorists have done in similar attacks on Highway 60 — but failed to cause the driver to lose control of his vehicle and crash with his precious passengers.

The boys’ bodies were found in a cave or pit, situated in an open field near the Judean village, located just north of Hevron.

The teens were kidnapped on June 12 while hitchhiking home from yeshiva for the Sabbath, and almost immediately murdered by the Arab terrorists who abducted them.

Israel Police raised its alert to the second highest level nationwide on Monday evening in the wake of the discovery of the bodies of the murdered teens.

Sadness, mourning, shock, unity, horror and anger are just some of the emotions running through every Israeli, and ever normal person tonight.

Many Israelis are demanding action and revenge.

The citizens are expecting PM Netanyahu, the government and the IDF to take decisive action against Hamas, its leadership and all the terrorists – and in particular against the terrorists who killed the boys, Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel.

Around the country, Israelis are going to the streets and lighting candles.

Israelis light candles at the hitchhiking spot from where the three Jewish boys Eyal Yifrach, Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Sha’ar were abducted on June 12.